The current levels of cleanliness on the campuses, what has contributed to their decline over the past decade and suggestions as to what could be done to improve those levels were discussed at the Feb. 21 Faculty Senate Executive Committee meeting.

"The issue of cleanliness on campus refers to a number of issues related to cleanliness, which are budgetary in nature," said Peter Nickerson, FSEC chair and director of the graduate program in pathology. "There are issues of policies related to state cleaners versus contracting out; there are choices to be made."

And while no formal decisions were made at the meeting, FSEC members engaged in a friendly, sometimes serious, dialogue about cleanliness, from which a number of recommendations emerged on how improve the campuses' condition.

Michael Dupre, associate vice president for university facilities, presented to the panel an overview of campus cleanliness levels-qualifying his assessment with the fact that "massive budget reductions and downsizing" have contributed to "some of the lowest cleaning levels we've ever had at the university."

Dupre said while there are "established cleaning levels" at the university, levels still have declined over the past decade due to budget and workforce constraints.

"We're now in our 11th year of cuts," Dupre told senators. "Cleaning on a scale of 1 to 5-5 being the worst level, no effort, 1 being high-profile executive space-we're probably cleaning at a level 2 in a lot of areas."

Dupre said some of the hardest hits came in the 1996-97 and 1997-98 academic years. Each year, nearly $1 million was sapped from the Facilities budget.

And over the course of the past decade-during which Dupre said the Facilities budget either remained static or was reduced-UB opened six new buildings, which were either "woefully underfunded or not funded at all for maintenance. . . so we had to stretch."

At the same time, Dupre said his staff was "downsized significantly," and in the mid-1990s, UB began to outsource some cleaning services. But even then, he said, cleaning levels continued to erode as the university struggled to secure outside contracts.

Citing a loss of employees due to funding cuts—which have resulted in a thinly spread stateside staff, Facilities’ current financial inability to bring in new contracts and help compensate for the diminished stateside workforce, and the ill-effects of inflation on Facilities’ overall purchasing power throughout the 1990s, Dupre said “there’s been a degrading across the board—both in what’s delivered via the contracts and on stateside.”

On the whole, however, “once we move a facility into contract, the specifications are fairly accurate,” he said. “We keep the cleaning level pretty static,” he said, adding that in general, less complaints are generated from the contract buildings.

The personnel situation stateside, he said, can produce what he called a “rollercoaster effect.”

“We accumulate so much attrition, and given how many people we’ve lost and how much money we have to work with, what may happen—we may get some financial flexibility through the attrition, but we may receive a cut.

“This current year, we’re going to receive a fairly modest cut that is proportional to the other support services of the university,” he said.

Dupre said picking up the cost of the new Math Building posed a challenge, since there was no additional money to offset that expense.

“We went into the year with about a quarter-million-dollar cut,” he said. “The year before, we had about a half-million cut. We just couldn’t come up with the money to engage another (cleaning) contract.”

Having outlined the history, Dupre returned to the current status.

“From my perspective, (we have) some of the lowest cleaning levels we’ve ever had at the university,” Dupre said.

But the upside, he said, is recent interest shown by Provost Elizabeth D. Capaldi and Senior Vice President Robert J. Wagner in investing in the areas of facilities and maintenance—which encompasses cleaning.

Dupre said he first wants to raise gradually the levels of cleaning on campus, and pair those increased levels with annual discussion—such as the dialogue opened with the FSEC—to address specific needs. He said he also is encouraged that “there may be some positive budget adjustments.”

He said as part of the overall plan to improve, contractors renewing with the university would be given an elevated set of cleaning specifications. As well, Dupre explained that the university would pump “almost all” of the requested budget adjustment into contract, freeing up the number of state-employed personnel and increasing staffing levels in other state-cleaned facilities.

A general air of discontent from FSEC members over construction on the South Campus elicited comment from Dupre on the issue of excessive dirt, debris and general mess.

“We’re doing, from my perspective, too large of projects with people in adjacent occupied areas,” he said, referring in particular to ongoing work at Farber Hall, located next to Cary Hall. “It’s causing grief for a number of principal investigators—(and has) actually contaminated some of their work.

“We don’t have the benefit, either, of stopping it,” he added, “because some of these projects are helping the school recruit principal investigators (and) grants.”

In addition to cleanliness issues directly related to staffing, Dupre cited a need for students, faculty and staff to rethink the campus “culture” in terms of becoming more conscious of individual contribution to upkeep.

Gaspar Farkas, associate professor of physical therapy, exercise and nutrition science, wondered if students couldn’t be encouraged to look after themselves.

“Is there anything in your budget to promote students policing themselves,” he asked Dupre.

While Dupre said there was not, he did agree that attitude was a contributor to the overall cleanliness problem.

He referred back to two years ago, when he said facilities had set aside money—in a tight budget, no less—to landscape various areas of the campus. Within a week, he said, cigarette butts and other debris littered the newly gardened areas.

“How do we change that culture?” he asked.

Farkas suggested the university take a cue from New York State’s Adopt-A-Highway program and implement something similar on campus.

“Couldn’t we have Adopt-A-Space on campus?” he asked.

The idea drew a warm response from Dupre and other senators.

The issue was referred to the Budget Priorities Committee.